Starred review from March 28, 2022
Technology journalist Vara’s potent debut revolves around a global society run by a corporate board. King Rao, legendary tech mogul and brainchild of the new world order, has died in mysterious circumstances, leaving his daughter, Athena, to preserve his legacy. Her first challenge is to prove herself innocent of accusations of conspiring to have him murdered. The Harmonica, an internet-connected device King invented and implanted in Athena’s brain, gives her access to all his memories, and she uses it to relive the traumatic circumstances of her father’s birth in 1950s India, which resulted in his mother’s death; his childhood years spent in the tiny village of Kothapalli before his migration to the U.S.; and his invention of the Coconut, a revolutionary computer that brought about immense global progress and indirectly led to his downfall. Even more pressing than Athena’s need to prove her innocence is her mission to distinguish herself from her father’s legacy and spread the truth about the board’s role in climate change, which leads her to seek out the “Exes”—estranged citizens who have rejected the current model of government. Throughout, Vara ingeniously identifies portentous links between history and the book’s present, such as the parallel Athena draws between the rise and fall of the East India Company with the Shareholder government run by her father. And with King “cursed” at birth, Vara succeeds at making her family portrait the stuff of myth. This is not to be missed.
September 1, 2022
Vara's debut novel, a genre-bending blend of speculative fiction, climate fiction, and personal narrative, tells the chillingly plausible story of a world where capitalistic technology reigns supreme, and catastrophic climate change is certain. With a crystal-clear, lilting voice, narrator Soneela Nankani reveals that King Rao, considered immortal by some, has been killed, and his surrogate daughter, 17-year-old Athena, has been implicated in his death. As she sits in prison, Athena, who can access her father's memories through a technology called the Clarinet, reflects on her father's past. Listeners will hear the dawning sorrow in her voice as she begins to understand how his past--growing up in a Dalit family on a South Indian coconut plantation and later migrating to the United States--set him on a path toward unimaginable success and inevitable destruction. Nankani deftly navigates the changing landscapes and time periods in this epic tale, imbuing the characters with depth through her skillful use of accents and tonal shifts. VERDICT: Listeners will be captivated by this multi-layered story, which is highly recommended for fans of near-future dystopian fiction in the vein of Rob Hart's The Warehouse or Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl.--Sarah Hashimoto
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